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Programs and Resource Optimization (PRO) for Higher Education

Most institutions know they have programs that aren’t pulling their weight. Few have a rigorous, defensible process for addressing it.

PRO is that process. It’s a comprehensive, data-driven review of academic and non-academic programs that gives leadership and the board a clear, honest picture of which programs are advancing the mission, which are sustainable, and which need to be retooled, de-emphasized, or closed. The result isn’t just a report. It’s a foundation for transformational decisions that improve both academic quality and financial performance.

The process is deliberately inclusive. It requires the cooperation of faculty, staff, alumni, and trustees — because all constituencies hold the most accurate understanding of what the institution is and what it should be.

What We Measure

Every program is evaluated across four dimensions:

  1. Mission-Centeredness — Measured through carefully designed surveys of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and trustees — the people who understand the institution’s mission most deeply.
  2. Program Quality — Both quantitative indicators (acceptance, retention, graduation, and placement rates) and qualitative perceptions of quality gathered through constituency surveys.
  3. Marketability — Demand for current and prospective programs among existing and prospective student populations, combining survey research with institutional and secondary-market data.
  4. Financial Performance — Using a Responsibility Center Management model, we identify which programs generate revenue and which consume it, allocating both direct and indirect costs to produce a clear picture of net contribution across the institution.

How the Process Works

The PRO process is structured, transparent, and institution-wide. It begins with a board vote formally requiring the review — establishing the mandate and signaling to the campus that this work is serious. The president then selects a broadly representative cross-functional PRO Team, with a majority of faculty leaders, to conduct the analysis.

Stevens Strategy supports the team throughout: helping design work plans, providing survey research and data analysis, facilitating open campus meetings where findings are shared and feedback is genuinely sought, and guiding the team through ranking deliberations to a final set of recommendations.

Those recommendations go to the president, then to the board, with clear actions and governance timelines attached. The research phase typically takes place in the spring and summer. The deliberative process runs through the fall semester.

What You Get

Programs are ranked across all four dimensions and sorted into three tiers:

  1. Those that should be advanced, invested in, and grown
  2. Those that warrant improvement plans but should be maintained for the next 2–4 years
  3. Those that require decisive action or sunsetting over the next 2–4 years

More importantly, you get institutional alignment around those findings: a process rigorous enough to satisfy accreditors, transparent enough to earn faculty trust, and clear enough for the board to act on.

Why It Matters

For institutions facing enrollment pressure, financial strain, or a portfolio that has grown without strategic intention, PRO provides the analytical foundation to make hard decisions well.

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